Photo: Peggy Sirota/More Magazine
Mrs. First Lady Michelle Obama is covering the February Issue of More Magazine. What dreams you wonder are left for the woman who grew up working class in Chicago, graduated from Princeton, Harvard law and became the first African-American first lady of the United States? Well she would love to :
“To open a secret door for others that hadn’t been opened for me,” by pairing disadvantaged girls with some of the powerful women in the land.
She speaks to more magazine about being the Flotus, following in her brothers footsteps, success and mentoring. Check out some highlights below:
On following in her brother’s footsteps going to Princeton (No one saw Ivy League material in the hardworking Robinson girl until she resolved to follow Craig to Princeton after he won a basketball scholarship): “When he got in, I thought, well, shoot, I know I’m smarter than he is,” she says with a laugh. “So if he can go to Princeton, I’ll just apply.”
On “FLOTUS” and “POTUS:”
“They call me FLOTUS, for first lady of the United States,” she explains, noting that the president’s internal White House acronym is POTUS. “And there are many times when FLOTUS and POTUS feel like characters.” There have even been times, she says, when she’s craned her own neck to see which celebrity might be causing all the excitement. “And it’s me. Oh, man, it’s FLOTUS. FLOTUS is here. No one told me FLOTUS was coming.”
On the importance of mentoring: “Even though our children are connecting in ways we never imagined,” she told a national summit on mentoring not long ago, “you’ve got an entire generation of young people truly in desperate need of a friend. Someone they can trust, an example they can follow.”
On the secret to success: “I sort of thought, what’s the mystery here? What is it about this place that makes some people-even myself-think that some people should have access to it and others shouldn’t? And that’s where I discovered that there is no mystery to this stuff. It is hard work. It’s access; it’s being able to envision it.”… “It’s also knowing how to ask for help when you need it.”
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Love her! Great excerpts, I can’t wait to read the entire article. Regardless of their political issues I believe the Obama’s are great inspirations for everyone not just African Americans.